Has modern comfort destroyed human discipline?

Of course, you do hear about gangs of "youths" physically assaulting adults and committing other serious crimes - which might or might not have even been contemplated 50 or more years ago - but there's juvenile prisons for that. I'm not hearing anything about someone being stabbed by a 13-15 year old in public, who went completely unpunished.

Well, the prick who stabbed my reputation/credibility on a social network is still roaming around completely unpunished, because the laws of locking people up inside juvenile prisons are outdated and didn't take into account the possible technological progress of the information age.

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My day job is crossing guard duty. I see school children five days out of the week. On average, I don't see a chance from my childhood.

Socrates said:
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

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I guess there are soon people who miss the days when "we just had facebook, twitter and youtube."

It's hard to predict exactly which way it's going go. If we get the choice of private virtual-reality holodecks then I'll be happy and grateful for the new advancement. But if we get confined to public virtual-reality holodecks with limited rights for customizing them to our personal preferences and no rights for kicking unwanted intruders out, then I can only rant and hide myself from the meanies.

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My day job is crossing guard duty. I see school children five days out of the week. On average, I don't see a chance from my childhood.

I too work with kids 5 days a week and I don't recognise the descriptions of "today's kids" from this thread. Sure there are some dick-heads and what they do catches people's attention and sticks in the mind (just like it always has) but most kids aren't like that.

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I too work with kids 5 days a week and I don't recognise the descriptions of "today's kids" from this thread. Sure there are some dick-heads and what they do catches people's attention and sticks in the mind (just like it always has) but most kids aren't like that.

Kids are less likely to be hostile and mischievous when they deal with you face to face rather than through a screen with a wall of text on it.
It's been proven. I know.
The screen and the wall of text gives them the freedom to speculate and scheme and "have fun trolololz". Whooptydoo. Their generation finds it hip to be reckless and apathetic online, but mine doesn't.

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I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"
--(Hesiod, 8th century BC)

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Kids are less likely to be hostile and mischievous when they deal with you face to face rather than through a screen with a wall of text on it.
It's been proven. I know.
The screen and the wall of text gives them the freedom to speculate and scheme and "have fun trolololz". Whooptydoo. Their generation finds it hip to be reckless and apathetic online, but mine doesn't.

I think some of the people here saying things like "your generation would be stupid also if it had had access to facebook/internetz/whatever" are missing the point.

Yes, perhaps we would have. But we did not have any of those things, so its a moot point.

No matter if the reason for younger people being more stupid is that they them self's are naturally worse, or if it is merely the result of new technoligy making it easier to be stupid, the end result is more young people acting like stupid dicks and thinking that it is ok.

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Kids are less likely to be hostile and mischievous when they deal with you face to face rather than through a screen with a wall of text on it.
It's been proven. I know.
The screen and the wall of text gives them the freedom to speculate and scheme and "have fun trolololz". Whooptydoo. Their generation finds it hip to be reckless and apathetic online, but mine doesn't.

So, the question has been narrowed down from the destruction of human discipline (which is the point that I was trying to answer) to the specific situation of trolling/bullying/douchebagging on Facebook?

Again, I don't think there is anything new or concerning. The youth of today are not being corrupted by modern comfort. They are taking the opportunity to do something stupid and spiteful because they can do it with impunity. I'm not convinced that any other generation would be different if the opportunity was there. There have always been bullies and humans have always been self-interested, selfish and spiteful. As for being more hostile from behind a wall of text than face to face - of course that's the case. I'm sure we've all done it: quite possibly unintentionally or without realising how much the "internet anger" was gripping us.

Indeed, adults make equally stupid "contributions" on social media to those of kids. It's just that there are less adults living on Facebook (etc) and doing it and, perhaps, adults are less prone to being publicly spiteful asshats. Note, this is not necessarily because they are of a previous generation, but because they may be more mature. If they could be transported forward from 1980whatever at the age of somethingteen and given a Facebook account, I'm not sure that their behaviour would be vastly different. Who knows?

On the flipside, I would say that condemning an entire generation simply because of some Facebook trolling is, in itself, a touch uncaring, rude and sweepingly general. I know a lot of young people who are, and will continue to be, valuable contributors to society. Generalised comments like some of the ones in this thread do them a disservice.

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I'm 17 now, and I've seen the best and worst of kids' behavior at school. I've always been regarded as a "good kid," as well as many of my peers. Sure, there are bullies and people who don't do what they're supposed to do, but I think today you find more modern examples of misbehavior while just a few of the classic ones remain. (I have older parents, and they've described what things were like back in the days when they were growing up, so I'm not totally oblivious to what the past was like.)

Probably you won't listen to me and think I'm just a clueless 17-year-old, but I honestly think there is substance behind what I've said. Oh well, everybody experiences different situations...

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It's something called the "little man syndrome". I have noticed in children they have become more and more eager to pick on some guy twice his age and size.

There's this one time where this guy, looked about the same age as me, was teaching his younger brother to swear at people at the park. So I was just minding my own business when all of the sudden I hear "Hey!"; I looked over at him and, no joke, he said "Fuck you asshole!".

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Kids outside were making good use of the snow the other day by throwing snowballs at people's windows, including mine. Nefarious behavior that would have never happened before Facebook and YouTube. Something must be done!

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I'm a father of 3, and I raise them to have self-dicipline and self respect and fear of me. I can tell you from experience that you cannot change a kids personality. There are born liars, and born saints. Some are smart not to be caught, and some are dumb and will do anything to get attention. Your socio-econmic background on the other hand is of great influence. What are you going to do about it?